I used to visit Toronto every year for Christmas, to visit my grandparents. That was the original meeting spot of our whole family, the home base where the Risk matches and Nerf gun battles and zombie tag games took place. I remember that no one had any phone to sit on back then—which is so difficult to picture these days. The house would be so packed that I would sleep on the floor, a rolled bamboo carpet-thing with a pillow and comforter. We roasted chestnuts. Even though they’re now back in Chicago, I still visit Canada virtually every year, frequently enough where applying for dual citizenship was justified.
I’ve fallen in love with Toronto more than once—Bloor Street and Kensington Market, Brickworks and the Art Gallery of Ontario.
a) the city has so many trees
b) oddly, better pizza than Chicago
c) great shopping with stores that aren’t anywhere else (MUJI, Kenzo) that you can’t get in chi
d) there are some crazy good skateboarders here.
I still like Chicago better, but I can’t really explain why I feel such an attachment to Toronto.
The family thing is obvious, having spent so much time here growing up—but crashing with my cousin, Pado, who’s one of my best friends and has grown up here, makes it feel so much more familiar. He’s shown me so many of the hideouts which make me feel less like a wandering tourist and more of a member of the city being initiated into the city.
Maybe it’s that my dad grew up here, and a part of me feels closer to the part of him that I don’t know very well: the convenience store clerk, the homecoming king, the rugby player, the encyclopedia reader. I feel like when I’m in Toronto, I get to feel a shimmer of that pride he feels in his home city.
Or maybe it’s the fact that when I crash with Pado, I’m in his 1 bed apartment where everything is a five-minute walk away, where he can recognize people crossing the street, where he can walk to the market and bump into a friend from high school, and then go on a drive to their house, and play pickup. Maybe it’s that neighborhood closeness which I always craved, feeling really dead-set into a community, which I get a taste of when I visit him.
I couldn’t really say. But on the same note as yesterday, I’m really appreciating having these brief moments of exploration. I feel an upward trend in feeling these moments of joy, curiosity, and balance—partial credit due to this writing challenge, no doubt—and this is the first time in a while I’m feeling increasingly confident that things are going to be okay, and not just today. Tomorrow, too.